TV camera rigged to kill Afghan rebel Masood stolen in France: police
The television camera rigged to kill Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Shah Masood in September 2001 was stolen from a cameraman in France the year before, French police said. French intelligence officers determined that the serial number on the camera matched that of one stolen in the eastern city of Grenoble in December 2000, they said, adding that the French cameraman involved had been questioned. They did not identify him. Masood, nicknamed the “Lion of the Panjshir” for his armed struggle against the Taliban that ruled Afghanistan at the time, died September 9, 2001 when two Tunisians posing as journalists with fake Belgian passports detonated a bomb hidden in the camera as they pretended to interview him. His death, just two days before the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington, has been linked to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network by US officials. French cameraman Jean-Pierre Vincendet said his camera had been stolen on December 24, 2000, while he was filming store window decorations in Grenoble. Full Story